Most UFO hoax operations, when faced with indisputable evidence of their fraud, usually respond in one of two ways: ignore it (Third Phase of Moon), or respond as if it didn’t exist (Mister Enigma, WTF Flow, Secureteam 10, Fausto UFO). When debunker Scott Brando, aka ufoofinterest.org revealed professional CGI artist Jean “J. H.” Wzgarda of France as the person behind hoax channel Section 51 2.0, Wzgarda took a different approach; he pretended he had nothing to do with it. Wzgarda has enjoyed widespread support for his antics, most recently for his “UFO Over Large Hadron Collider” hoax, from British tabloid news sites. I suppose he was a bit shocked to be exposed after freely, profitably and anonymously faking it for so long. This conversation ensued over Facebook chat:

Hi, I see that you and Ufo of interest published my name on your page. Who are you ? Why ? What did I do to receive your hate ? Do you know what is harassing on internet ? That’s what you’re doing with me and I want to know why you’re doing this ? Why you’re attacking me ?…

You may think it’s ok to create fake UFO shots and claim they’re real, but people involved in real research, trying to find real answers find it offensive. You should stop immediately.

Who are you to claim that it’s me ? Are you crazy ? It’s not me. I agree with your point of view but this is not me. Must be a kid or idiot hacker using my name as CGI artist to create his website anonymously. Stop publishing my name and my works on your page, they have nothing to do with section 51. This is harassment and defamation. I’m going to report your publications to Facebook for harassment. Do you think I have time to lose with that ?

Don’t play that game with me. I took screen capture of your facebook page. You published pictures of me and my work without my authorization with the aim to discredit me and my name. I saw Ufo of Interest too and all sites which seem to be in your network. All that for why ? Because you think that you have found some guy you can hate without limits, because of your frustrations about ufos and section 514. You’ve got the wrong guy. It’s not me and stop publishing false informations about me. It’s YOU the faker !

Sorry, that’s not me. What does proof me that you didn’t trick the data on this site ? My company is known on internet, anybody could have taken our informations to create an account knowing that we do production and visual effects. I will investigate too. And that doesn’t change the fact that you or anybody else hasn’t the right to make freely harassment against a person on internet or facebook or twitter. Even to publish images and names without authorization. What is your name ? Who are you ? That’s not fair, you pretend you know me and I know nothing about you. That’s completely silly !

I’m not interested in playing games with you, Jean. Obviously you don’t intend to stop creating hoax videos, so you’re just going to have to become accustomed to people knowing who you are and what you’re doing. If that bothers you, then find another hobby that doesn’t involve being a liar and a fraud.

You must be joking. Are you serious ?!! Who are you ? Are you scared to give me your name ? What does allow you to attack me personnally like that ? That’s sure that it’s easier to put the name of somebody in the dirt when you stay in the shadow.

If you believe this may possibly be a case of mistaken identity, conisder that Mr. Wzgarda maintains his personal web site on the same server as section51-ufo.com. He is a CGI artist with a fetish for American military imagery, significant because the first incarnation of his web channel, Section 51, was focused on military footage as background for his UFO hoaxes. He got a lot of play with his “UFO Attacks Taliban Base” hoax among others. That channel was removed from YouTube because (best guess) Google decided that exploiting combat footage of real soldiers really risking their real lives wasn’t so cool. And there’s this, from his web site:

Also around this time, Mr. Brando discovered that Mr. Wzgarda (@JhWzgarda) was following Section 51 (@section_51) on Twitter.

I’m no psychologist, but it seems to me that in the face of overwhelming evidence, Wzgarda’s claim that he has nothing to do with Section 51 is absolutely nuts. Unlike other hoaxers, at least he acknowledges what’s being done under the Section 51 brand is wrong. Perhaps compared to the blanket denial offered by others in his profession, that’s a little nuts as well.

In August of 2014 when I created the original Secureteam 10 Speedebunking episode, it was an attempt to prevent a laughably simplistic hoax channel from becoming a huge waste of time. However, with the help of some high profile web sites trying to ride the Fake Train to Viraltown, it has become exactly that.

While Tyler Glockner doesn’t have technical chops, he seemed to put a lot of work into window dressing: titles, logos, little audio effects, a gear store. In fact, the stylistic effort probably took more time than the videos themselves, poorly Photoshopping UFOs into backgrounds or simply fading them into view in a video. It seems Tyler’s style appealed to worst-of-the-worst tabloid “journalist” Jon Austin of the Express UK, who decided to become an honorary member of the Secureteam. This, along with the hoax channel’s burgeoning subscriber numbers, warranted a more robust response. Hope you enjoy and share.

I’m WTFflow, the “hoaxer” you love so much. I recently watched your debunk video, and I have to admit that the work on your channel is awesome. Still, your debunk video about me is really nonsense. Your assumptions are false, and honestly, your’re missing the point. The videos I shot are 100% true, and no “tracking” has been made. I admit these are plausible explantations if you consider the videos are fake. I still have the original video files of these sightings.

Anyway, you CAN criticize my work and have your own opinions, it’s your right, but re-uploading my videos is forbidden. I could fill a copyright complaint to YouTube and take your video down. The thing is, if you have 3 strikes from other channels, your account will be terminated.

I’m not gonna do that. I sincerely don’t want that to happen to you, as you seem to work hard making these videos, and that would be too rude. If the other channels don’t mind about your re-uploads of their videos, well keep making new vids! But my videos are copyrighted and it’s always written in ALL my descriptions.

My advice to you is to stop hoaxing immediately. You may make a couple hundred bucks a month off your channel, but as others in your business will find, a career as a professional liar is a dead end. Is this the legacy you want to leave to the world? Once hoaxing is no longer a viable business model, you’re left with a body of work that is worthless. You would be better served to focus on developing your visual effects skills to the point where you can do real work in film and television. That would be something you can be proud of.

November 19, 2015: Today’s New York Times tech policy column featured an article on YouTube’s new Fair Use Initiative which seeks to defend creators from unwarranted copyright infringement complaints. All the attention has been rather strange, but a good kind of strange.

It all started back in September 2014 (see Copyright Theater) when I received a copyright notice initiated by Secureteam 10. Then immediately after two more were registered by LookNowTV, who I had embarrassed in both the first two episodes. Until these were resolved my channel was taken offline, and UFO Theater temporarily moved to Vimeo. While on Vimeo I posted Speedebunking: Mister UFO/Mister Enigma, which led to this exchange with the hoaxer himself, Robert Simmons of La Crosse, Wisconsin. He had the video temporarily removed from Vimeo. When UFO Theater was up and running on YouTube again he tried the same nuisance tactic there in November 2014. Neither of us had any idea what he would set in motion.

It wasn’t until June of 2015 that I was contacted by YouTube (I’m sure their inaction on Simmons’ complaint was driving him mad), explaining that they had received the notice from Mister Enigma but “selected one of your videos as a candidate for a new effort that protects some of the very best examples of ‘fair use‘ from copyright takedown requests.” I assumed this meant I would be one of perhaps a few dozen creators chosen. I was absolutely shocked when I discovered I was one of only four in the entirety of YouTube. I imagine the odds are something akin to winning the lottery. I’ve probably not received a tenth of the copyright grief and harassment endured by the other three producers, but there I am, the only one quoted in the article, and a big ol’ flattering screen capture. Maybe I’m the only one Ms. Kang could reach for the story.

After seeing UFO hoaxes go viral week after week when they’re promoted by British tabloids, particularly the Express, it’s nice to get some notice for UFO Theater’s perspective. More episodes coming soon.

Wonder no longer. This comment from “SuperSurprise,” a Thirdphaseofmoon fan, recently appeared on the Hoaxplosion! YouTube page. Before you attempt to read, it may help to temporarily abandon everything you hold dear about spelling, punctuation, paragraphs, and reason. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

“[UFO Theater is] delusional. Only 851 subs in a channel over 1 1/2 year old ch=Epic failure. Ouch! This guy is very jealous. Period. Fact or Fake, there is about 500-5000 popular of supernatural channels on utube. If every jealous nobody like him decided to launch false flags out of pure jealousy, the false flagger would lose his/her utube ch. Not only that, he know’s nothing about how youtub really works. Those big channels he’s soooo jealous of happen to have an appointed utube account manager. This means, a real person at the real utube helping them 1 on 1 when they need it. This must burn him up more. It’s a fact, Youtube works with these people when some jealous bitter person comes along and tries to launch an attack on the popular utube channel.It happens often enough.The false attacks can even come in false DMCA attacks on their content. CHannels like 3potm last for a reason. They are great entertianment love then or hate them. Utube is all about entertianment. Sorry mainstream do not find debunking videos entertianing.Do some research. Youtube backs these channels.There would be no utube if jealous bitter failures(There is a ton look at the comments here) came along and tried to get populer channels and trending viral viral vids pulled.It happens 24/7. So many jealous bums out there crying. The have nots like him are very bitter about it.This is just a jealous man talking to his peers of other jealous ufo nuts with failed utube channelsand failed dreams. He is telling people to flag videos for what he does not like on utube. If 1 user flags 3pom videos enough because they are so called fakes to him/her, the user filing the false flags over and over will in fact get his/her utube account terminated for false flagging. Yes, youtube will see the flagging as a false flag for many reasons.It’s entertianment. Get a grip, it’s utube! These channels also have videos in worldwide media which means they have media deals too. Sorry 2 burst your bubble guys. No one important cares accept a handful of ufo nuts with failed utube channels.BTW, for a conpiracy theory. I have no affiliation with these channels. I just watch and call it like i see it.The only thing he really blew up is his own jealous feelings.I feel bad for the guy. He’s angry about it. You can hear it in his voice. He’s another commercial 4 these big ufo channels. They’ll only grow and become larger with all the free promotion they get from the 100’s of little guys channels being jealous about them on loads of little man utube channels crying and serving as a commercial for them…That’s my rant. Here’s a box of tissues!”

See, folks? UFOlogy has nothing to do with UFOs. It’s “entertianment”!

Thirdphaseofmoon steadily craps out crimes against common sense and integrity in the form of YouTube videos. They may occasionally get shared by third-rate news sites looking to boost numbers, but they can’t escape their own mediocrity. We watch, analyze, and turn crap into gold- with FIRE. Enjoy.

In addition to debunking, this details a bit of the process for discovering the source of a video, and some interesting things you can find along the way. This hoax happened to pop up at the right time for me to be able to respond quickly. The fact that it was picked up by a few news sites is part of a sad trend: us UFO freaks are not really taken seriously for the subject we’re interested in, yet we’re seen as a target market and a way to draw more attention. Web sites have picked up on the fact that we’ll watch just about anything UFO-related on a larger news site because the association with the larger entity, makes it seem legit. Unfortunately these sites have chosen the absolute worst material to put on display, hoaxes from Secureteam 10, Third Phase of Moon and Mister Enigma.

There really is no excuse or purpose to this except to generate traffic. Some of the comments from the 07TV YouTube page for this hoax include:

“Fake, fake, fake.”

“THIS IS GROUP IS LIKE THIRD PHASE OF THE MOON IT’S ALL FAKE…”

“Stop wasting everyone’s time. You’ve made these stupid hoax videos before, and they get debunked every time. FUCK OFF.”

News sites are certainly not making their UFO video choices based on credibility or reputation. I’ll cover this more in another episode.

A UFO hoax created by Mister Enigma, aka Robert Simmons of Wisconsin, was posted to YouTube on June 21, 2015 and subsequently featured by some larger news sites beginning June 25.

How this happened is difficult to understand; it featured nothing remarkable. It’s the type of thing you’ve seen from hoaxers before: footage from the ISS with a few tiny specks added in to make it look as if objects were exiting the Earth’s atmosphere. This was followed by the typical NASA “loss of signal” title card, suggesting we were seeing something forbidden. It’s a scenario so old, I’m surprised hoaxers still use it. In this case, it worked to spectacular effect from Mister Enigma’s point of view, as it’s been taken up by news sites worldwide.

As best I can determine, patient zero is Huffingtonpost.co.uk, who ran with the story on the 25th. Other news sites followed suit without doing the simplest bit of research, such as Googling “Mister Enigma hoax.” I guess it’s one of those oddball stories that’s too good to check.

This episode is a good illustration of what an echo chamber online news has become. If one of the larger news sites makes an error, that mistake will be repeated ad nauseam, possibly in perpetuity. I have been posting comments on every site pointing out this particular error, even tweeting directly to the articles’ authors, but I’ve not seen a correction yet.

Also repeated ad nauseam: my advice to check your sources. Not the source of the news story, but of the video it’s based on. Five minutes of effort by Huffingtonpost.co.uk could have averted this nonsense. Viral mistakes of this kind are an insult and a disservice to people who invest the time and equipment into recording real sightings, but even worse, the media attention directly supports the creation of more hoaxes.

I have to admit I was stunned at the number of insane pareidolia-driven Mars channels on YouTube, yet after some thought, it makes sense. It’s incredibly easy to spot something unusual among millions of rock formations in thousands of photos, doctor it up with Photoshop and create a glorified slide show. It’s hoaxing for the completely lazy and talentless.

I can’t tell if people are engaged with the content because they consider it a serious analysis or if they’re simply curious to find out how ridiculous the assertions can get. Hopefully I’ll get some feedback from fans of the Mars slideshows.

The hoaxers would have us believe that the Martian landscape is strewn with random objects having no plausible explanation for their placement or existence. I wondered what such a nutty environment would look like, so we now have Mars Madness as a reference.

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While creating hoaxes is profitable, exposing the lies is not. Using the hoaxers' video to debunk it prevents us from monetizing our work on YouTube. If you enjoy UFO Theater, please support us with a donation and help spread the truth. No amount is too small. Thank you!